World Tree MUSH

  It's been a long and exhausting trek through Hyrule Field. Summer has come roaring to the fore with a vengeance. Hyrule's verdant heartland has been transformed into a dry sea of dead straw. Wildfires have raged out of control all across Hyrule: Sometimes these charred wastelands where ash rains from the sky last for days, and sometimes their travels pass through places where smoke blots out the sky. Burnt wreckage marks where settlements had lay, and in some, the few remaining souls scatter at the caravan's approach.

  Their path has taken them south around Hyrule Castle, always staying away from it, and away from where the Twilight has overtaken the grasslands. The citadel itself towers even from so far away, magnificent even in its ruin: The delicate stonework of its soaring spires is cracked and broken, and some of them have tumbled down entirely. Holes yawn through the roofs where timbers caved in on themselves. Most of the walls are scorched; charred.

  Passing east along the castle, the road slopes up from the monotonously flat field. The air begins to clear of its smoke...

  The air also starts to grow colder. Much colder. Temperatures, in fact, that rival Snowpeak in its winter months; temperatures that soon have Zelda shivering as she plods along beside her horse and wagon. The horse and wagon are both left behind in the lower areas of the city, which ascends the cliff as an almost organic extension of the stone. It's a strenuous hike to the top; and the higher one goes, the colder it gets.

  "What have you been up to, Zant?"

  Zelda's observation is quiet, resigned... and quietly angry, subtle and enduring as the ice underfoot.

  The basin itself is frozen solid, frosted white. The princess sidles up to it, toeing it with her boot. There's no give at all; it's smooth and hard as glass. Where there should be a waterfall at the top of the chamber, it's silent as a tomb.

  ...There are strange shapes below the surface of the ice, too distant to see clearly. They're quite large, though. Zelda has her head cocked down towards them, too. Blue eyes narrow as she regards the distant shapes underfoot; frozen in the water. Just what are those...?

Temulin doesn't mind the cold too much, the steppes can get quite cold in winter. She's dressed for it, but still it's cold and uncomfortable. What outright doesn't bother her is the ice, as she's been circling above the group, both as a lookout and from a general disdain for mountain climbing. She too eyes the shapes underfoot, and directs her bird to land on the ice, talons digging in for stability. "Don't the Zora live underwater?" She sounds uncertain.

    The doll- no, the puppet- er, that is, the girl in the black hooded coat has not uttered a single hint of a complaint at the stifling heat, despite wearing thick leather covering its- her entire body.

    The cold garners equally little complaint, although when she notices Zelda shivering she holds up a hand and conjures a ball of fire there. Despite wearing high heels she doesn't lose her balance on the ice.

    Lex Brando is not properly dressed for this.

    She was feeling a bit morose at the sight of the ruined landscape, and so she was ... well ... even more quiet than she is normally. Her gaze did linger over the sight of Hyrule Castle from time to time; however, whatever that business is, it's clearly going to be long off before (she assumes) she hears how the battle ended.

    Now, she's shivering visibly. "What the crud," she murmurs in her scratchy and androgynous voice, frowning as she looks around. "Anyone got, like, a shawl or something?" She does a double-take at Xion -- wait, was that a girl this whole time!? -- and scoots a bit closer to her when she produces that fire. "In context, Temulin," she says carefully, "that is ... kind of uh, a really worrying question, sort of thing."

    She cautiously draws her cutlass. It's not held at the ready; she just wants to have it out when something surprising happens. When, not if, in her mind.

    As they crossed the plain, Yumi has been a touch miserable. She'd dressed largely for Snowpeak temperatures; while she certainly had a layer or two extra to shed, even her innermost layers (or at least, the innermost layer that's still decent to wear) is a bit on the warm side. It's a rare oversight on the girl's part. But she's gotten to the point that when she thinks of Hyrule, she thinks of Snowpeak.

    But as they ascend toward the land of the Zora, the redhead actually finds reason to want those layers back. That's weird enough in and of itself. A frozen lake is no place for a race of merpeople, is it? But Zelda's reaction cements it - this is Not Normal. Yumi's frown deepens.

    "They do, yeah. This is really not good. I don't have nearly enough power to melt all this, even if I went all out. I might be able to make us a tunnel straight down, but it'd... it'd cost me a lot. Too much." Already, a gold-white light is taking solid shape around her body, forming an armored dress with a soft 'fwoomp' and a few stray motes of light. She flexes a gloved hand and looks down at the ice under their feet. The situation is strange enough it's worth transforming.

    The journey through Hryule Field had not been easy on Rydia of Mist. Even mounted on the back of her trusted chocobo, it was a gruelling, tiring trek just to keep up with the pace of the others and not be left behind. At least the girl isn't looking so pale anymore, however as the dry heat turns to cold once again, the last Summoner can't help but scowl.
    "I'm starting to get tired of the cold." And she has every right to be, after living on Snowpeak for so long. Tugging her Wolfos hide cloak tighter around herself, though, she soldiers on, thin mist swirling around her lazily as she guides her chocobo and brings it to a halt, dismounting and leaving the bird behind with the horse and wagon.
    There's a slight flinch when Xion summons that ball of flame, and Rydia keeps her distance, choosing to sink further into her cloak as jade eyes squint deep into the frozen waters.
    "It's super quiet..." She mutters, a tiny hand twitchily edging for the dagger at her belt as though she were expecting something to come out of the cold gloom. "I don't like it one bit."

    Travel doesn't seem to bother the half-Esper, Terra, too badly at all! Whether hot, choked with drifting ash or now weirdly cold, it's not unbearable. The cold does make her tighten up a little, though she issues no complaint; she's not much of a talker in the first place so why add anything negative to an already grim situation. Though, she does muse to herself with some bit of annoyance that she should have made sure to pack more clothes for everyone. Who would have thought it'd just get cold like this, though?!

    She looks up at Rydia, nodding once with a soft 'mmm' of agreement. Yeah, the cold is usually pretty tiring regardless of preparedness. Doubly so now as we enter that frozen scape, leaving the relative shelter of mounts and wagons behind.

    Upon the ice, she's just surefooted enough to avoid unfortunate falls. Still, when she kneels down to regard the shapes she doesn't follow the cue from others or her urges to be near her weapons and instead places a hand on the ice.

    "What's down there?" Whatever it is seems to interest her a lot more than being ready for a fight. She's surrounded by people she has no reason to mistrust. Even Temulin, in spite of that long ago fight.

  "Yes," Zelda answers Temulin, simply and quietly. She doesn't look away from the ice, pointing down. "They do. Look."

  The pall of Twilight hangs even over this place. The distant sickly-orange sky reflects in the ice. The shapes, on investigating more closely, are strange little blooms of light, of all things -- a slight brightening, distorted by the planes of ice they're locked behind.

  "They have been turned into spirits." Zelda looks up, studying the sky with a thunderous expression. Her skin's been crawling since well before their ascent up the cliff; the Twilight always makes her irritable and jumpy. "A side effect of the spreading Twilight. So. They are trapped. Until we resolve the problem of Twilight, we cannot speak with them or interact with them..."

  Poof. Xion conjures a tiny flame, and Zelda inclines her head Xion's way in what must be gratitude. (...Still suspicious, though.)

  "They are accustomed to water. I would imagine they will be none the worse for the wear when they are unfrozen." The princess rubs her jaw, thoughtful. "Perhaps they've gone into stasis. I sense their minds; though they are sluggish, cold, and unresponsive, they are alive. For the time being. They have been like this for a long time. Possibly since Hyrule Castle was seized," she adds, softer, in a tone of unmistakable guilt.

  What's down there? Terra asks, and Zelda looks down, hair spilling out from under her hood and over a shoulder. Her mouth twists in a downward slash of a frown.


  There's something else beneath the ice, too, looking straight down to the deep basin. It wasn't noticeable at first, but whatever it is, it's massive and long, serpentine in shape. It coils with a swish of what must be a very long tail. Sickly orange light emanates from it whenever what must be the head comes close enough to the surface to see it. It navigates the half-frozen water beneath the ice sheet without any trouble.

  Zelda sinks down to a crouch, and then onto her hands and knees, peering so intently at the ice that her nose nearly touches it.

  "Well, there lies our problem. And, coincidentally, our solution." Standing, Zelda brushes bits of ice from the front of her robe, pointing straight down to the ice underfoot.

  "Destroy that, and I suspect we'll be well on our way to some answers." She's already backing away towards the edge of the basin, as close to the ice-crusted wall as she can get. "It is like to be very unpleasant once disturbed, so I suggest we be ready to act once we've found a means to break through that ice."

  Her eyes flick to the others. "I don't suppose any of you have a means to break or melt that."

  The Hylian's teeth are chattering, but she ignores it, with great irritation.

  "No," she says, to Yumi. "I don't want you burning youself out. There's no telling how strong that thing is... I mislike this, too," she asides, to both Rydia and Yumi.

  Somewhere between one breath and the next, that royally-ornamented bow has come to rest in her hand. An arrow is already nocked to the string but not yet drawn.

  Better get crackin' against that ice.

When Lex asks for something warm to wear, Temulin opens up one of the packs on her mount and takes out what looks at first like the pelt of a large red-furred beast. That's because it is, the man-sized weasel's fur has been made into a warm cloak, with the head-furs serving as a hood and leather straps to tie it closed around neck, wrists and waist. It should be decently protective against the cold. "Keep it. It's too big for me." She offers.

Zelda's explanation puts her on ease about the situation somewhat, though she pales when the suggestion comes to /pierce/ the eyes, and tries to hide this fact by closing her visor; leaving only those red-ringed eyes of her visible, and seems to get ready to take off again. "I'll be fighting from the sky if you guys lure it out." She offers with a calm, steady voice. Obviously forcing it to be.

    Xion doesn't appear to notice Rydia's flinching away from the flames. She barely seems to register Lex edging closer to her, even.

    She looks down at the shapes in the ice, her expression... completely hidden by her hood, so there's no real way to tell what she's feeling.

    Zelda's request to break the ice prompts Xion to draw one of her Mirage Blades from nothing. "...Fire." Fwoom! Fireballs begin to shoot out from the tip of the sword and impact the ice.

    Lex raises her eyebrows at Yumi's transformation, but doesn't comment. Not for the first time, she's reminded of the legends from her own world of the warriors known as Shinewanders, but it's obvious that there's no one-to-one relationship. She glances back at Rydia and Terra, concern clearly visible, but she really isn't sure how to approach them.

    She blinks in surprise as Temulin offers that pelt. "Oh! Um, uh, thanks!" she says, gingerly accepting the cloak and wrapping it around herself, and then adjusts her glasses. "Thank you ..."

    A bit more comfortable now, she follows Zelda's gaze into the water. "Oh, great," she says. "... I'm ... gonna tell Ezella she needs to send in someone with ranged capability, and stuff," she mutters. Nevertheless, she stands her ground. She was far from useless the last time a Twilight monster showed up; she has no reason to think this situation will be any worse --

    Aaaand there goes Xion. Holding her cutlass at the ready, Lex takes a few steps further back from the frozen surface. "Uh ... hey, uh, careful there ..." she says uncertainly, glancing back towards Rydia again.

    As Zelda speaks, Yumi glances between the Hylian and the ice underneath. "...If it's only a couple of feet thick, I might be able to do something about it. Especially if I have help." Help which the hooded girl begins to provide. The magical girl gives Xion a nod, then says, "Alright, hold your spells for juuuuust a moment. Let me give you a head start, here."

    She pauses briefly, then adds, "Folks might want to close your eyes for a second."

    That's when Yumi's right fist begins to glow. A golden-white light begins to shine from her curling fingers, going from soft to a brilliant glare in the space of half a heartbeat. The solar heat rolls off of her fist, noticeably raising the temperature for a good several feet around her. The senshi draws her arm back, holds it for a second, then roars out a forceful, "HAAAAAAA!" and swings that fist straight down into the ice. Where it impacts, there's a sudden burst of light and heat, and an outward rush of steam as a fair amount of ice is flash-boiled on the spot. Yumi herself stands up afterwards, unperturbed and unscalded. "All yours, Xion."

>> SUMMARY[Yumi Tachibana] >> SUNLIGHT YELLOW OVE- wait no

    That. That is a very big something under the ice, and when Rydia sees it, the child's lips purse into a thin line.
    "So the plan is to free that thing and kill it. Sounds great."
    Sarcasm is one of Rydia's specialties, friends.
    But then. Then there is fire.
    Again, the child flinches, instinctively pressing much closer to the person nearest her- in this case being Terra as she hides behind the half-esper for a moment, eyes squinting against the brightness of Xion's spell and Yumi's magic.
    Deep down though, something nags at her.
    You can help them. A small voice in the back of her mind whispers.
    No. She hisses back, under her breath. I don't want to.
    Even just a little will make it easier.
    NO.
    Coward.
    Screw you!
    This internal argument continues as long as she squints her eyes shut. But then. She peeks them open. It's still so bright. But her lips ar moving, whispering words of power.
    When Rydia of Mist holds up her hand, a small flciker of fire appears in her palm. She flinches away from it, the spell fizzling in an instant. But she tries again, eyes squeezes shut as she repeats the words and somatic gestures, before...
    "... FIRA!"
    With a yelp, she releases the spell, a huge plume of flame bursting from her hand and at the ice.

>> GAME >> Rydia spends an Edge for: Fira

    The half-esper leans back from the glimpse of flickering light below the surface. Of the movement of a great bulk along with it. She rises and takes a few careful steps back. It would seem that, for the moment, the way is through the ice. Best to get out of the way and in so doing maybe spare Rydia the sight of what she presumes to be a storm of fire and light.
    Her gaze moves from Xion and her display of almost-familiar fire magic and then, perhaps unwisely, to Yumi. She shields her eyes and turns away, regarding Rydia and Zelda with a look of apology.

    Then Rydia is actually clinging onto her and she stops, looking down with a hint of alarm reaching her expression.

    It's not really Rydia's reaction to fire that surprises her. It's the vehemence of that not-so-internal dialogue. When the small summoner makes a move to reach past her she doesn't do anything to stop it and her heart jumps as she realizes what might be about to happen.

    Then it's happening. Rydia's wielding fire magic. It takes just a beat for her shock to wear off before she joins in, perhaps inspired by Rydia's bravery or perhaps to a lesser extent encouraged by the cover all the fire spells already flying. She lifts a hand and murmurs, channeling more from instinct than knowledge and then, targeting the weakened portions hit before, releases volley of fireballs from above, each pounding ice with loud booms and reports.

    It's not her fault magic from her world was so finely weaponized but sometimes it comes in handy. Her remaining hand on Rydia's shoulder offers what she hopes is a comforting squeeze.

  Zelda presses herself back against the wall until cold ice digs into her shoulder blades. Her eyes remain on the sheet of ice beneath their feet. It's so cold it exudes mist into the warmer air.

  ...That water is going to be beyond cold, and she's already sidling towards one of the spiralling columns of stone that ring the basin; a curved alcove that runs around it. Normally, water would lap at one's ankles while standing in the shallows around the edge; she's busily moving herself to higher ground. There are a few scattered spots.

  ...And she's doing it before anybody starts playing with fire, thank you very much. Settling in the branched fork of a broken piece of stone chipped from a column, she sets her bow across her lap, arrowhead loosely trained on the open basin.

  The combined efforts to break through the ice are... successful! Mostly. It's kind of slushy in some spots, but there's enough to notice that there is a breach widening near the middle, at its thinnest point.

  "I don't know," she says to Yumi, shaking her head. And then shielding her eyes, because bright.

  ...And then Rydia invokes fire, and Zelda stares, eyes wide enough to reflect its orange-red light. Did she just--?

  Yep. Not only did she, it made the difference between breaking through the ice or not.

  And then, something beneath the ice rumbles ominously. Half-frozen black water churns.

  From the broken pillar, Zelda raps out with military precision: "Away from the breach! All of you!"

  Because the breach is getting bigger. That's because that serpentine form is slamming into the ice from beneath it, with all the heft of its bulk and muscle. It's a hideous thing, with the black haze of Twilight running wild over its slick scales. It might have been an extreme deepwater fish or eel, once upon a time, the kind with huge blind eyes and glowy lights. Except the lights on this one are the sickly orange and lurid red of Twilight, and it does not look friendly in the least.

  Also, it has a nightmarish amount of splintery needle teeth crammed into its mouth. Oh, by the way, it's also thrashing its head through the breach and snapping at the nearest person it can get to. That would be Xion.

  So massive is its thrashing body as it pulls itself through the hole that it sweeps across the chamber to slam at everyone: Rydia, Yumi, Temulin, Lex, and Xion are all in its path. Who knows how much more of it is still beneath the ice? That head must be vulnerable, though. Those giant eyes, maybe, or pulsing gills as its maw gapes wide again.

  "The eyes!" Zelda cries, from her perch on the far upper edge. It's moving too fast for her to get a bead on it; she's firing arrows, but for the most part they're bouncing off the thing's rubbery hide. It's moving too fast even for her to target its eyes reliably, no matter how big a target they are.

Temulin was already taking off by the time people started to take active efforts to make nice comfortable solid ground into a hole that one can fall through and if unlucky, never come back from; so it doesn't take much more to take to the skies and evade the thing. She takes a deep breath, and steadies herself; telling her to face her fears and deal with this thing. Rydia showed such bravery, it wouldn't do to be a coward, and so she jumps back down from her bird, darkness surrounding her blade as she aims to pierce one of the eyes on this thing. Her normally impeccable accuracy is somewhat married by the fact that her eyes are closed and she's breathing rapidly and somewhat sharply.

    Xion doesn't seem to hear Zelda's warning to get away from the breach. She does begin to back off on her own - the many attacks coming down around her will do that - but she's still the closest one when the beast rears up out of the water to attack.

    Xion finds herself snapped at, shrieking with surprise as she tries to dodge - only to now slip on the slushy ice and get a nice tear taken out of her arm for her troubles. A spray of blood almost immediately transmutes into motes of light as it leaves her body.

    And then the monster's thrashing about causes her to be thrown into a wall with a nasty crack.

    She staggers to her feet, hood down, blood trickling into her eyes. Her body is giving off whispy motes of light. She looks about ready to collapse.

    Instead of collapsing, though, she glowers at the creature. A foul beast standing between heroes and innocent lives. The dull static of her mind suddenly sharpens to a single point of white hot rage.

    Too fast to get a bead on? Nah. "FEVER PITCH!" she shouts, at the top of her lungs. She then promptly vanishes with a blur of speed, only to reappear right in front of the beast with two Mirage Blades in hand, stabbing right into its eye before vanishing in another burst of speed, seemingly kicking off thin air. She appears at another eye, throwing an orb of blinding light with a cry of "PEARL!" before vanishing again, continuing to harry the monster from a variety of angles, moving too inhumanly quickly for anyone to keep track of.

    She is really, really overdoing this. She's gonna be sore tomorrow if she actually survives.

>> GAME >> Xion spends an Edge for: Hovering at the Edge of Oblivion: Fever Pitch

    Having delivered her first shot, Yumi stands back to make room for others to work on the ice. Or rather, to make room for Xion. If she needs to throw out more, she can always do so. But right now it looks like the hooded girl has things in hand? Maybe this will-

    A fire spell goes sailing past Yumi. That wasn't Xion. A quick glance also tells Yumi that wasn't Terra, or Temulin, or Zelda, or Lex.

    "...Rydia?"

    Yumi's eyes go wide as realization settles in. And a huge, beaming smile breaks across her face. "Oh my gosh Rydia!" A few loping steps take her straight over to the summoner, whom she scoops up immediately into a tight, happy hug, lifting her off the ground and starting to spin happily. "You used a fire spell! I'm so proud of you right no-"

    THUD.

    The magical girl stops her happy twirl, turns, and looks at the ice. "...right, rain check on the obnoxious hugs. After that thing." Smoothly, the redhead sets Rydia back down, then turns towards the splintering ice. As the nightmarish serpent creature breaches, runes are carving themselves into the air with gold-white light, and the massive blade of Prominence takes shape. Yumi grabs it as she walks forward, gives the huge sword a single whirl about herself, and then lunges forward into the fight - and decides to set strength against strength.

    Down comes Prominence, held out in front of her so that she can catch the creature's slam head-on. The impact jars Yumi, sends a throbbing ache through every bone in her body, but she holds her ground, doing her level best to keep the thing still even if it's just for a moment. Not to mention, that impact can't be too fun for the monster, either.

>> SUMMARY[Yumi Tachibana] >> OHMYGOSH RYDIAAAAA- oh wait, boss now, overjoyed later. Meeting the eel-thing head-on, taking the slam so that she can stop it moving for a moment.

    Lex quickly covers her eyes as Yumi gets going. Hot on the heels of her words, though, Lex says, "Oh right, 'Xion'!" She hesitates. "... Why did I even forget that name -- whoa, what!?"

    She does a double-take at Rydia. She has no idea about the details of the girl's obvious trauma, but even Lex caught on that it was fire-related. And especially after Yumi's display, even Lex can understand the significance of fire magic.

    But now it's time for action. "Right, eyes!" she answers Zelda's call, leaping out of the way and onto more solid ground than she was a moment ago. "Uhhh ... let's see -- XION!" She breaks into a dead run, the cloak she got from Temulin flapping behind her.

    She only gets about halfway when Xion reveals that she can do ... that. Lex's face contorts into surprise and alarm as she takes in the sight of Xion just going to town immediately after the monster sent her ragdolling.

    Well now.

    Lex takes a few deep breaths -- through her nose; she read somewhere that you should never breathe through your mouth when it's below freezing -- and then turns around and runs towards back to the monster. She ducks and weaves through everyone else's attacks, hops to the side to avoid getting chomped again, and slashes with her cutlass against whatever eyes she gets close enough to hit. She's still not great compared to everyone else around her; the monster is clearly above her weight class. But hey, every little bit helps, right?

    A quick glance in Yumi's direction. "Totally a Shinewander-equivalent," she mutters under her breath with a lopsided grin.

>> SUMMARY[Lex Brando] >> Remembering Xion's name! Astonished by Xion getting thrown around! Astonished by Xion getting back up again like *that*! But contribuiting in whatever way she can nonetheless.

    That. That was not something Rydia enjoyed.
    Her hands trembele, her knees quake, memories the flames burning Mist to cinders dance in her head as she shakes her hand out to try and make the warmth leave her fingers as she loses her footing and falls flat on her ass.
    "UWAH!" Only to be scooped up by Yumi in the throes of glee, "Uwahwahwah!" is her further response as she's spun, head spinning just as much as the rest of her-- up until everything comes to a grinding halt, her attention turning to the terrible thing emerging from the slushy waters in time with Yumi.
    "Yeah that's kind of more important right now." She agrees dumbly, as she's set down.
    It's a beast. And jade eyes watch as Xion brutalized- "Ah!"-- only to suddenly become too fast for her to track. Yumi leaps into action, and Temulin is already in the fray. What more can Rydia do?
    She pauses, still breathing heavily, biting hard on her lip.
    "Ramuh, Shiva, Titan, Asura, Leviathan..." She mutters, reaching out.
    Yet none of them listen. Nothing happens. Not this time. And calling upon an Eidlon so soon after the fire in Hyrule field would likely kill her.
    "FINE I'll do it myself!" The girl grouses, hands moving in somatic gestures as she mouths words of power all over again and--...
    "Thunder!"
    Calls down a bolt of lightning from the skies to shock the beast.

    So first, ice, now it's a huge serpentine creature that's all fangs, scales and corrupted darkness. When it's met immediately by both Xion and Yumi's head on attack, Temulin's dive bomb and even Lex's evasive maneuvering to get in hits of her own. Her own weapon remains at her hip. There's enough chaos and little enough sturdy terrain to make use of for her. So, she posts up a little ahead of Rydia and Zelda's position, hands coming up as she begins up draw up more magic to pelt the beast with.

    There's some hesitation as she tries to select her moments carefully, flashing small blasts of fire around the beast's head to try and corral it into a movement that leaves one of those eyes exposed to someone with more movement ability than she has!

    Of course, she's also quite ready to lay down some healing on anyone who gets hurt but she's too busy to call that out and perhaps just a bit unwilling to say so lest she cause anyone to become unduly reckless.

    With everything going on, she finds herself frowning at how hard it is to keep track of Xion. What if she lands a bad fire spell or misses a critical moment to heal?! More than a little stressful.

  Temulin's accuracy takes a hit when she doesn't pay attention to where she's plummeting. While she manages to score a grievous wound down the creature's sinuous body, her blade doesn't bite into the eye as she had hoped. It happens. Going by the way the thing screeches and thrashes, whipping up foam in the black water, Temulin's efforts certainly didn't go unnoticed.

  That in turn leads to the Twilight monster to play ping-pong with Xion. Only she doesn't bounce back. It's a rather one-way trip.

  It had actually slinked its head back down to investigate this pesky getting-back-up-from-death Xion, and then it gets a sword in the eye for its trouble. Just one, though, because as soon as it registers there's something in front of it, it's wrenching its head aside so only one of them gets put in harm's way. It isn't too good at blocking her on its now blinded side, either, sustaining damage with every strike.

  Zelda's heart goes out to the tiny fire-slinging Summoner, too, but she stays where she is because the thought of being smacked down into the black water and frozen to death doesn't sound too good right now. Snakey fishy thing over there is still alive and still very, very angry.

  Its jaws close on Prominence, needly teeth scraping against the smooth plane of its steel, but it just can't get any kind of leverage. Since it's busy chewing on Yumi's sword, and alternatively thrashing towards the little fires Terra goads it with, it doesn't get to react to Lex slashing right at the remaining eye.

  And then it's hit by a thunderbolt, jerking and sizzling and lighting up the base of the waterfall like day for a moment.

  For her part the princess hitches herself further up on her stony perch, sighting down her drawn arrow until she can aim at the line of the thrashing serpent's throat.

  Zelda lets fly.

  Broken, burnt, battered, bruised, and lacerated, the creature finally looses a gurgling death-shriek as three arrows in rapid succession bury themselves in its throat. It shudders, still reflexively trying to lash out at these insignificant insects, but... it's all out of fight. In fact, it's all out of anything. The head comes down with enough force to shatter the ice beneath it, scattering glittering, razor-sharp shards. It slides back down into its hole, and then, with a puff of black flame, its mortal remains evapourate into jittery little geometric shapes that flit skyward before vanishing.

  Silence descends back over the mostly-frozen headwaters.

  "Look."

  Zelda points up to the sky. The orange fades to a proper night sky, spangled with stars and blessedly familiar constellations. The princess looks down again.

  "...And look."

  The points of light are now humanoid shapes. Fish-like Zora are frozen in the ice as though they had been in the act of swimming, some mid-stroke. They have fins and look kind of fishy, but they don't have gills, and some of the fins are actually pretty grand and ornate-looking. Some are green, some blue; some brown, some maroon, some pink. Some are grey or black. One or two are even light grey.

  Zelda finally hops down from her perch, landing heavily in slush and broken ice. She stows her weapons, frowning at the soaked hem of her robe and the water lapping at her boots. "Well... the Twilight is finished, here. Thank you, everyone."

  She turns, glancing back at the ice looming on all sides, some of it broken in battle. "...This is far too much ice to melt, though. Not for us, not as we are now." Her eyes narrow. "I have an idea, long shot though it may be."

With her eyes still closed, as soon as it's clear the thing is dealt with. Temulin reaches for her whistle and blows it, and Denhes flies back over, grabbing the dark knight with his talons, and once she feels their comforting sting does she once more open her eyes, reaching out for the rigging for leverage to swing herself back up. Then, she maneuvers the bird back to land; staying a comfortable distance away from the hole in the water.

She releases a breath she'd been holding, and raises her visor to smile at Rydia, still pale and uncomfortable looking. "I'm proud of you, Rydia." She offers, "It's hard to face ones fears, but when it must needs be done; the brave manage it. You just proved you're very brave." The compliment would likely carry more weight if it wasn't for the tremor in her voice; one she's trying and failing to hide.

She nods to the others, "Well done everyone." She offers, before glancing to Zelda and listening. Then at the end, offering, "Let's hear it, then?"

    As the beast lets out its death gargle, Xion screeches to a halt in front of Zelda. Her coat is battered and torn in places, she's bleeding from her forehead, and she's surrounded by a bright white light. She's also grinning like mad.

    And then the light turns off like somebody flipped a switch, and she collapses to the floor.

    Overdid it a bit there.

    Down it goes at last. Yumi takes a step or two back as the Twilight fades away, watching the ice... and then frowning again at what fails to happen. If anything, isn't this worse with them now in physical bodies again? "If there's anything I can do, let me-" Oh dear, there goes Xion.

    In a few loping, hopping strides, the armored magical girl makes her way over to where Zelda and Xion are, and carefully bends down to pick the cloaked girl up. "Alright, up we go..."

    Lex leaps back as Rydia calls down a full-on lightning bolt. "I feel like I ought to mention," she calls out, "magic which is this level of flashy is just, I mean, really rare in my homeworld!"

    She regards the geometric shapes of the twilit monster's disintegration. She waits until Zelda calls out to 'look', and only then does she heave a sigh of relief. "Well, then," she says softly. "Uh ..." She laughs weakly. "Yeah ..." She glances over as Temulin goes over to Rydia, but she has nothing she can really say to a relative stranger. Oh well. She turns towards the direction of a caravan so she can get her supplies for cleaning her sword.

    And then she pauses and furrows her brow as Zelda makes that pronouncement. She hasn't known the woman to be reckless, but 'I have an idea' and 'long shot' are words that pique her interest when used in conjunction. "What kind of idea?" she says with a guarded smile. "Whoa!" She stares as Xion just collapses like that, but ... well, Lex isn't a medic, and Yumi manifestly has a better idea of who is one than Lex does.

    When all is said and done, Rydia is breathing heavily, sweat beading on her brow. That initial burst of fire took a lot out of her, but to follow it up so fast with a lightning bolt leaves the girl looking a tiny bit pale. But jade eyes follow Zelda's indication of the frozen zora, and she's silent for a beat.
    Only for color to quickly' return to her cheeks as Temulin speaks.
    Rydia opts to not comment on the tremble to the Au ra's voice and just accept it, head dipping in a shaky nod.
    Then Xion collapses.
    "Ah shoot, Yumi bring her here-- Terra get over here!"
    Terra's white magic is levels above Rydia's, but that doesn't stop the little Summoner from putting her hands on Xion. They're warm. And they should keep Xion stable while Terra works.
    "... That wasn't flashy, was it?"
    Rydia only called fire and lightning, it's not like she summoned an Eidolon. ... This time.

    It's all over so fast! It was a lot to keep track of, everyone absolutely pounding that massive beast back where it came from, breaking the curse on this little slice of the world and making it that much easier for her to breathe again.

    Unfortunately, Xion's little quirk lets her slip just outside of Terra's notice until more dilligent people like Yumi step up and take over to pull her out of harm's way!

    Terra glances to the remaining frozen waters, curious about the fishy people, curious about the way the sky and seemingly the very atmosphere seemed to fix itself after the beast was defeated.

    Questions must wait, at least for her. She dips a quick, grateful nod to Temulin for offering encouragement to Rydia before she takes off after the girl to see to that strange hooded woman's well being.

    She takes only a moment to take stock before she raises both hands over Rydia and Xion both, motes of twinkling green surrounding the dark clad girl. It's never a sure thing, healing magic, though it should help with the worst of any injuries sustained. She'll have to try something else if these wounds are particularly grim.

  For the most part Zelda is content to let people shuffle around as they will after the battle. Temulin gets back in the saddle. Xion falls over in front of her, which she doesn't even have time to react to before other people are on it. Somewhat nonplussed, Zelda waves Yumi towards Xion.

  "Right now, not especially." The princess shakes her head, drawing her robe closer. "The Zora conjured this ice. Perhaps to defend themselves against the usurper. Either they counted on me, or loyalists to the Hyrulean throne, to free them... or they expected to remain frozen indefinitely."

  She blinks, looking back to Lex when she's queried. What kind of idea?

  "This is not the only place in Hyrule plagued by troubles. There is another, and its residents are longtime allies of both Hyrule's throne... and Zora's Domain." She turns, gauging the stars briefly, and lifts an arm to point northwest. "The Gorons, of Death Mountain. The Gorons are master metallurgists and metalsmiths. If there is a means to thaw this ice without harming the Zora, I trust Chief Darbus to know."

  Picking her way out of the slush to stand on a relatively dry part where the pathway blends into carved wall, Zelda considers, leaning back against the cold stone and its rime of frost. "It involves going back from whence we came, I'm sorry to say. Death Mountain lies several days south of Peak Province, and considerably further down the mountain than we are most familiar with."

  "I have heard nothing from Death Mountain, either, which suggests to me that they are likewise in the midst of dealing with their own kind of crisis." Sliding down from the wall, Zelda starts splashing her way back to the trail that had led up the cliff, looking tired and worn. "They may need our help to resolve it. If we can free both realms... we have our allies. We will be that much closer to laying siege to the castle."

  Her expression twists. "...I should hate to leave without attempting to contact the Light Spirit of Lanayru Province, but my priority is to first free the Zora. They may be able to explain to me what has happened here."

  "I'm sorry to drag you all across the kingdom only to turn around and drag you back, but I see no other way. It would take us months to melt all of this ice even with our combined powers... and we would risk harming those Zora trapped within the ice."

  And then... Rydia might feel the weight Zelda's hand on her shoulder. Fingers clutch at the girl's smaller shoulder, a squeeze that takes the place of an embrace, since she's busy keeping Xion stable as Terra does her thing.

  Even so, Rydia may feel all the warmth of her royal friend -- and all the warmth of the Goddess Hylia, too.

  The light of the goddess is all the warmth of the sun; gold in the air of summer.

  We are proud of you, Rydia of Mist.

    Xion feels... odd, when she's picked up. Too light for her frame, flesh too hard to be human. Her head is, oddly, once again covered by her hood - a peek past it reveals that her face is completely blank.

    And I don't mean it has no expression. It has no eyes, no mouth, only the barest hint of the swell of a nose. But this doll-like thing is definitely... alive, right? You saw it fighting on your side just now...

    A soft green light falls across the doll, and its eyes flutter open. His eyes. It's a boy, maybe thirteen, brown spikey hair and blue eyes- no, a girl with shorter brown hair and green- no, wait, a boy with-

    And then Xion is herself again, looking tired and confused.

>> SUMMARY[Xion] >> What the heck even is this thing

    Lex laughs weakly at Rydia's rejoinder. "That's, I mean." She shrugs. "Even that much, is beyond us, most of the time. And I don't think anyone from my world can throw lightning around, especially right after casting, uh ..." She hesitates. "That ... fire spell, kind of thing."

    She pauses as she watches Terra get to work. "And healing magic is really rare," she adds. "The only guy in my world I've even met is Dr. Goldenhair."

    She nods to Zelda. "Well," she says, "I'm with you here." She shakes her head. "If I don't get some kind of grieve-ious bodily harm or whatever --" She mispronounces 'grievous'. "-- I'm in. Ezella's gonna love hearing about what elves who aren't species-narcissists are up to in other worlds."

    And then her gaze falls on Xion's rapidfire transformations. She blinks a few times, failing to connect that doll-like figure to anything, before ... oh. Oh yeah. Xion! The girl who got sent flying. Lex shakes her head to clear it. "Okay," she says hesitantly, and then her voice trails off as she searches for the right words, before finally settling on, "what the heck."

>> SUMMARY[Lex Brando] >> Lex mistakes Zelda for an elf, then immediately gets distracted by Xion nobody-ing.

    Once Terra gets to Xion, Rydia dials herself back, letting the half-esper take over the job of getting Xion back on her feet.
    Only for Rydia to see the eerie faceless doll-like thing under the hood that once again becomes Xion.
    "Whuh..."
    "Uh." She's shaken enough to only barely mumble a response to Lex; "Still don't like fire..."
    The hand on her shoulder though makes the child go bolt stiff. She knows that feeling; the sensation of not just the princess' touch, but of something more divine behind it, and it sends a tingle down her spine, cheeks flaring righteously. She opens her mouth to speak. Stumbles, stammers, and then realizes something...
    "Wait... 'Death Mountain'?" Rydia questions. "I thought we LIVED on death mountain, you mean to tell me that Hyrule has an actual, literal Death Mountain?!"

    Absolutely focused on the task of trying to ensure someone doesn't die in front of her, Terra doesn't notice what's going on with Xion's face. At first. Eventually, though, she finds herself staring. She's confused, maybe a little alarmed though she feels compelled not to bet that it's her magic having this effect. No, focus on the life. Her- his- h- Their strangeness is something she feels a weird sort of empathy for.

    She looks up at Zelda, managing a small smile. Something good happened today for once. She can't help but be happy for her friend! Though when she overhears Lex commenting about healing magic she does have to will herself not to shrink from the attention. Her face does color somewhat, though.

    She feels she doesn't have to point out that she'll go along wherever Zelda does. However ominous a name like Death Mountain might be.

    Lex looks over at Rydia. "I'm just kinda, like, taking names in stride at this point, kind of thing." She doesn't seem to notice Terra's reaction.

  Half a glance is cast to the business with Xion, and the princess' lips thin in consideration. Help or no help, that thing is not following them quite all the way home. Not until she has a chance to learn more about it. There's something wrong with anything that fails that miserably at behaving human. The others seem to have her well in hand, though.

  For Rydia, the touch of Zelda's mind is eclipsed by the sun-bright presence of Hylia. Going by the smile on Zelda's face, though, both are in clear agreement. She releases Rydia's shoulder and steps back.

  An owlish blink is spared for Lex.

  "I am not an elf, whatever folk beyond the World Tree may think. I am Hylian. And it's 'grievous,' thank you. Your help would be appreciated." A fleeting half-smile. "But do try to get your facts straight before you begin the business of spreading them far and wide, in your excitement." 

  She's serene in the face of Rydia's accusations.

  "Where have you been every time I've spoken of the Goron, Summoner?" She stoops down, gathering up the hem of her robe and wringing the sodden thing out. Her hands are cold, stiff, and colourless; she's still shivering a little. It's like Snowpeak in winter and she is absolutely not dressed for it under that robe.

  Letting it go with a sigh when it just splashes into ankle-depth water again, she shakes her head, turning toward the pathway that leads back down. "Well... in the meantime, best we return to Eldin Province." That's below Snowpeak Garrison by a fair margin, less tundra or taiga and more the rocky badlands of high desert. "Kakariko Village should be our first destination. Its people can tell us more of whatever has befallen Death Mountain."

  The princess turns to start picking her way carefully down the trail, but she pauses before she descends out of view, glancing back.

  "Well fought, everyone." Zelda inclines her head. "Thank you."

  With that, she turns, descending from view until the others follow.